The New Reality of the Net
Was on the danish national broadcasters conversation show “Deadline 2nd section” in a conversation about “the new reality of the net” (their title) last sunday. Haven’t dared watching it myself, but if you’re adventurous you can watch it.
Interestingly how much attention Secondlife gets since it’s a very small trend compared to the major trends, interesting how such a tv show is produced (apart from the 3 camera people it’s very light staffing), how scripted a conversation show on tv actually is - perhaps that what it takes to do good tv, why there suddenly is such an enthusiasm hype about the net and how much the three of us who we’re on the show actually shared perspective/culture/ideology (net culture at work here).
December 14th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Hippie 2.0
Hvis nu internettet lukkede i et år, hvordan ville dit liv så blive?
…
December 14th, 2006 at 4:52 pm
Hi Thomas, you did very well on telly last sunday. The programme was interesting, Jes Stein Pedersen seemed well prepared, and especially yours and Niels Ole’s comments were very much in tune with the need for de-exotification of “the new net”…how ever it still seems that the language; online/off-line, real/virtual needs some brushing up. The language reflects a dichotomy which all of you argued (we all do) doesn’t exist.
December 14th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
And here in a more standard compliant format (mp4 ipod ready).
mp4 video
December 15th, 2006 at 12:07 am
@lisa. apparently in a hippie commune. always love when old hippies call me who might as well be called a suit-wearing capitalist a hippie. sign of the times.
@jane. you’re probably way too polite. agree very much in the language - the three of us who we’re on the show discussed it afterwards, how a big part of it is the missing language to describe today’s “reality”…
did a presentation in september describing language’s role in change, http://bootstrapping.net/2006/09/29/dead-words-walking/. it’s important. any ideas on the terminology?
December 15th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
I saw your presentation on how words matter earlier and I agree with you. Language is action or a “doing”, and we need to be careful about the way we go about it.
I can’t think of any specific terms that’ll bridge the dichotomys we keep sustaining and reproducing, but I know some people would suggest an alienating language (for instance instead of ‘offline’ you would describe the actual practice of being away from your computer), but that seems a bit too particular to me. I haven’t thought it through, but I think we could come a long way by using words we would use in other situations. For instance “I talked to”, “I saw him/her” and so forth, and simply leave out words like real/virtual etc. Actually I wouldn’t suggest trying to make up specific replacements words. If we do so, it suggests that we still think of netuse as something extraordinary to our lives, and isn’t that what we don’t want to do? As I see it that was the point you guys put forward so eloquently on the show.
December 16th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
I’m also amazed by the kind of attention that Secondlife gets from traditional media.
When new ideas come up they have to take a certain time before the majority of people understand them. But Secondlife in terms of idea is not new. There has always been conversation around the topic of virtual life.
So people have become used to the term virtual life. Secondlife just fullfills that now materialized space.